


if we could start again

by wolfish_willow



Series: Kisses Bingo 2020 [9]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt Steve Harrington, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, POV Steve Harrington, Post-Season/Series 02, Pre-Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Steve Harrington Needs Love, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, Steve Harrington-centric, bc no one's talking about anything yet, but like pretty darn pre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:02:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26177677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfish_willow/pseuds/wolfish_willow
Summary: Steve's shoulder has gone numb. He's not sure if it's from leaning against the wall while he keeps an eye on the door, or swinging at monsters with his bat. The adrenaline has been slowly wearing off. His arms and shoulder blades are sore. Sorer than he remembers after the demogorgon. Of course, that could be from the fight. He'd thought his fight with Jonathan might leave him prepared for another one. Turns out, not when his opponent is BillyfuckingHargrove.Headlights streak across the front of the house. Steve tenses up, pushing himself off the wall. Pins and needles immediately set off in his shoulder, but he barely notices. He curls his fingers around his bat in case Billy didn't get it through his head that tonight isn't the best night to mess with them.
Relationships: Jonathan Byers & Steve Harrington & Nancy Wheeler
Series: Kisses Bingo 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1849858
Comments: 18
Kudos: 138
Collections: Kisses Bingo





	if we could start again

**Author's Note:**

> Ninth Fill for the Kisses Bingo. For the prompt: Patching up a wound
> 
> I've been in a Season 2 feels kind of mood lately. Enjoy some angst after all the fluff from the other ficlets!

Steve's shoulder has gone numb. He's not sure if it's from leaning against the wall while he keeps an eye on the door, or swinging at monsters with his bat. The adrenaline has been slowly wearing off. His arms and shoulder blades are sore. Sorer than he remembers after the demogorgon. Of course, that could be from the fight. He'd thought his fight with Jonathan might leave him prepared for another one. Turns out, not when his opponent is Billy _fucking_ Hargrove.

Headlights streak across the front of the house. Steve tenses up, pushing himself off the wall. Pins and needles immediately set off in his shoulder, but he barely notices. He curls his fingers around his bat in case Billy didn't get it through his head that tonight isn't the best night to mess with them. 

"It's Will!" Mike yells from the living room. He's been plastered to the front window since they got back. The rest of the kids rush to join him.

"He's okay, right?" Dustin says, as though any of them will know better than him. "If they're back it means he's okay?"

"Yeah." Lucas nods. Steve's impressed by how sure he sounds. The kid has to be as worried as the rest of them, but he doesn't sound like it.

They crowd around the door. Steve eases his grip on the bat, letting it fall back against the wall. It isn't long before the door is opening, Joyce carrying Will through. She pauses long enough to smile at the kids before she heads further into the house. Most of them follow her, talking over each other down the hallway. Lucas watches them go, but heads back into the living room and joins Max on the couch.

"What happened to your face?"

Blinking slowly, Steve turns and finds Jonathan standing in the doorway. He's staring intently at Steve's face, frowning. Maybe it's the plate to the head or his trip down to the tunnels, but Steve is confused. Why is Jonathan worried about his face? He's the last person Jonathan would be concerned about any other time.

"Hargrove," he says, shrugging. 

Nancy walks in behind Jonathan, her face shiny. Actually, both of their faces are. Now that he's paying closer attention, he sees the way Jonathan's hair is stuck to his forehead. Their shirts look soaked through, too. All those heaters must have worked.

"What was Billy doing here?" Nancy asks, looking back out the door over her shoulder. Steve thinks Hargrove drove off earlier. They'd left him knocked out by where Steve haphazardly parked the guy's car when they got back. Everything between the tunnels and now has been a little hazy. Hell, the whole night is starting to feel like a weird dream and it isn't even done yet.

Steve shrugs. "Max is here."

Nancy and Jonathan share a confused look but Steve is too tired to get into it. He waves vaguely in the direction of Jonathan's living room. Max and Lucas are still sitting awkwardly next to each other on the couch. Considering how much those kids love their friends, Steve thinks it's pretty cool of Lucas to stick around the new girl so she's not stuck on her own. Especially since she's not just new to the group. Steve knows what it's like to find out monsters exist. It's pretty scary.

Hopefully Hargrove doesn't give her any more shit after tonight. There's nothing Steve can do about it now, not much he can probably do anyway since it's been made clear he can't take the guy in a fight. But he likes the kid and remembers the look on her face when she realized her step-brother was outside. They told Steve he wouldn't be a problem after the way Max had taken Billy down when he was unconscious. He hopes they're right.

"Is that a bandaid..?" Nancy points somewhere at his face.

"Probably?" Steve carefully feels over his face until he finds it. "Huh."

He pulls it off with a wince. "Hey shitheads," he calls into the house. "When I find out which one of you put this yellow bandaid on my face, your ass is grass!"

"Sure, Steve!" Dustin yells from…somewhere. He hears someone shushing him; maybe Joyce. They've probably got Will in one of the bedrooms by now. 

Jonathan stifles a laugh. At least, Steve thinks that's what he's doing. He's not sure he's ever heard Jonathan laugh before. Steve doesn't want to think about how he likes the sound of it, so he doesn't. He turns around and starts for the living room. 

It's occurred to Steve that with Joyce back, he's not the only adult-ish person here. He doesn't have to stand by the door keeping watch as though Hargrove or another demodog is going to attack them. They're still waiting on Hopper and that girl with the weird name—some kind of number?—so there's a chance there will be more trouble. But people better at fighting than him are here now and Steve is going to take this opportunity to sit down.

The couch is calling his name after what feels like days on his feet.

"Wait a minute," Nancy says. She wraps her hands around one of Steve's arms. He pauses to look at her. There's a split second where he wants to lean into her. Today, this week, has been hell and she's familiar and right _there_. But he can't. She's with Jonathan now. Steve's just _bullshit_ , the reason her friend is dead.

She never loved him.

His heart is still sore. He told her it was okay, and it _is_. It's hard to be mad when he remembers how he acted last year just from seeing her and Jonathan together. But it hasn't sunk in yet, not really.

It's a close thing, but he manages to hold himself still. 

"Nance," he says, and it feels wrong. Too familiar, maybe, when they're not...are they even friends anymore? Probably not. Add getting through the rest of this year without any friends to the list of things he's not going to think about right now. "I'm tired, my head hurts. I just really want to sit down, okay?"

"We will," she says softly. Her eyes are shiny and wide and he looks away before he does something stupid. "But I think you need something besides a bandaid."

"Yeah." Jonathan comes up behind Nancy. He lifts his arms like he's going to hold the tops of her arms, but jerks them back down at the last second. Steve kind of hates how much he appreciates it. "I've got a first aid kit in my room. We should probably at least clean the cuts."

Steve feels Nancy's hands around him, sees the concern painted across their faces, and sighs. "Yeah, okay," he says, "But I'm serious about needing to sit down."

Nancy smiles, gently tugging him toward the kitchen. She pauses when she sees the floor. It actually looks a bit better than Steve remembers. The kids must have swept most of it to the edges at some point. "Hargrove?"

"Yeah," he says, dropping down into one of the kitchen chairs. It's nowhere near as comfortable as the couch looked, and his back doesn't appreciate the hard back of it, but he's off his feet. He'll take what he can get. Leaning back, he watches Nancy look around until she finds a clean enough looking towel. She wets it in the sink.

"Sorry," she says, biting her lip. "You've got some blood—"

"Everywhere?"

She winces and nods. 

He sighs again and shrugs. "Can't hurt any worse than getting them did."

That might even be true, but rubbing a towel over his cuts and bruises is a completely different kind of pain than getting punched in the face. Keeping still is difficult but he does it. It's bad enough his ex-girlfriend is cleaning him up. He doesn't need the added humiliation of not being able to handle some stinging.

"Found it."

Jonathan is quiet. He sounds almost as tired as Steve feels. Tonight hasn't been any easier for him than it has for Steve. It's just as hard to hold onto his anger towards Jonathan as it is Nancy when he knows everything he's gone through. How anybody can be as strong as any of the Byers' are, Steve doesn't know. He feels like he's barely keeping it together; has been holding onto normal by the tips of his fingers all year and nothing even happened to him. He only saw the monster. Jonathan thought his brother _died_. Their mom went to the place Will was trapped, the place the tunnels seemed to be leading to, and brought him back out. Will has somehow survived all of that _and_ being possessed by a monster.

Steve doesn't know how Jonathan is still standing up right now.

"Great," Steve drawls, shoving the thoughts away. It's not like he can actually say any of it to Jonathan's face. He wouldn't believe him. Why would he? They've been friendlier this year, but they're not _friends_. Now that he's staring into a future without any, Steve kind of wishes he'd done something about that after last year. Fighting a monster together should have...Well, it was too late now, wasn't it? Feels like he's always a little too late.

Nancy steps aside while Jonathan pulls one of the other chairs around. He sets the box on the table and sits across from Steve. "This will probably sting," he says, holding up a cotton ball he's wet down with some sort of antiseptic.

"Of course it will," Steve sighs again. "Just...get it over with."

"Sorry." Steve can't decide whether to smile or frown at the way Jonathan unknowingly echoes Nancy. It hurts. Probably will for a while. He loves her. That isn't going to go away just because they're over. But it's good to know that she's with someone who will hopefully understand her. Someone good for her, who can relate to what she's been dealing with all year.

Someone better than Steve.

When the cotton ball touches his face, Steve hisses.

"Sorry," Jonathan repeats, and he does look sorry. Nancy rounds the table. Her hand is warm against the back of Steve's neck. He wants to pull away almost as much as he wants to lean into it. But then Jonathan is dabbing his face again and Nancy rubs his neck and the pain feels like it eases a little faster.

"Thanks."

She squeezes his neck again with a small smile. He can't bring himself to return it, but he still appreciates it. 

Her hand tightens again before Jonathan cleans the next cut.

"What's—" she leans over him, staring at his hair. 

"Steve," she says, voice a forced calm. "You didn't know if you had a bandaid on your face."

"...Yeah?"

He looks at Jonathan, confused, but Jonathan doesn't notice. He's staring at Nancy, then follows her eye line. 

"Did you lose consciousness?"

Steve shrugs. "For a couple minutes. Hargrove fights dirty. Why?"

"What happened to your head?"

Oh. The plate, right. He waves a hand at the broken pieces on the ground. "One of the plates. Hargrove caught me by surprise."

"Jesus, are you sure you're okay?"

Nancy moves until she's in front of him, cupping his face gently in her hands. It hurts, but not enough that he wants to pull away.

"Uh, Nancy?"

"His pupils _seem_ normal?"

"Are you sure?" Jonathan stands and they switch places. His hands are bigger and warmer than Nancy's. They feel kind of nice—another thought for the list.

"Guys," he says, reluctantly pulling out of Jonathan's hold. "I'm fine."

"How do you know?" Nancy asks, cupping the back of his head. 

"I'm not concussed," he says, but he's starting to wonder with the way it feels like Nancy is petting the back of his head. And the fact that Jonathan is squeezing one of his shoulders and looking like he's afraid Steve might keel over. "I've had one before, I know what to watch out for. Seriously, I'm fine."

Nancy puffs up like she wants to argue. A nudge from Jonathan seems like enough to calm her down and Steve raises his eyebrows. That's new.

"If you say you're fine, we believe you," Jonathan says, patting his shoulder. "But you're staying the night."

"Wait what?" That's the last thing he expects Jonathan to say. Steve would have thought Jonathan would be happy to get Steve out of his hair as soon as possible. Not telling him to stick around.

"Yeah." Nancy nods. "It's late anyway. Everyone's exhausted. You probably shouldn't be driving even without a head injury."

"I made it back from the tunnels okay." He didn't hit a tree the whole way back.

"From the—" Jonathan shakes his head. "Nope, that can wait until tomorrow. Tonight everyone needs some rest. I know the kids are already planning on bunking up in Will's room."

"I don't—"

"Please?" Nancy asks, eyes wide. She stops petting his hair, but doesn't move her hand.

Dammit, he doesn't know how to say no to her.

"That's not fair," he says, and he's going to blame his exhaustion for the way it comes out as a whine. "Fine. I'm so tired I could probably fall asleep here anyway."

He doesn't end up sleeping on a kitchen chair, though. Or on the couch, where he notices Hopper as they head down the hallway. That girl is lying there with him, her head in his lap. He's not sure if she's asleep or passed out. Hopper doesn't look particularly worried, so Steve is going to assume everything is safe enough for now.

They end up in what he can only assume is Jonathan's room. He's fought off monsters, more than once. He's seen living vines and a tunnel to another world. Somehow _this_ is still the weirdest part of his day.

He's too tired to argue about it. Too tired to feel awkward, though he knows tomorrow is going to be hell. For now he's going to cram into a too small bed with his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend and be grateful he doesn't have to be alone tonight. He's going to add the ache in his chest when they insist he takes the middle spot to the list of things he's not thinking about and hope that when he wakes up tomorrow the last week will all have been a bad dream.

**Author's Note:**

> Please consider leaving a comment if you enjoyed it! <3


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